Who's That Boy
by frankannestein
Summary: Companion to "For A Moment's Peace": Noah knows nothing of honor. Or so his father accused him. What must Noah do to prove him wrong, when Ivalice has known nothing but peace for the past twenty-four years? [Author seeking collaboration - details inside.]
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: **Welcome, Dear Readers! Thank you for taking the time to click on this story. I just want to say a couple of things real quick before you get started._

_1. This is a companion novel to "A Song for the Past" and "For A Moment's Peace," which means that it is not necessary to have read either of those to enjoy this one. Also, I don't believe it is necessary to have played FFXII, since this story takes place so long after the events of the game ended. This story can be looked at as more original than fanfiction._

_2. My summary is awkward, and for that I apologize. As mentioned, I seriously need help in outlining a full plot for this book - romance I got down, adventure not so much. I thought of borrowing what little I know of "Fortress," but it's SO very little. If you are interested in helping me, please send me a PM! I promise to give you full credit for your work and ideas. I am confident I can fit any idea into the FFXII universe if it's not already there._

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**_FFXII_, _Revenant Wings_ and the unreleased _Fortress_**

**© Square Enix**

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"We've got a live one here," Marjn shouted, but speaking at that decibel wasn't unusual around dinnertime in the Whitecap and no one heard her. Besides, whenever she used a hume expression, her delivery was that of a two-bit mummer on a penny stage.

"What?" Sari asked over her shoulder, but she wasn't really paying attention to her friend. She didn't have time to chat right now. "Who had the shepherd's pie?" she called across table fifteen, holding her tray high above the heads of the people gathered there. She had to repeat the question over the talk and laughter, but a sky pirate on the far side of the table finally looked up and realized – or remembered, depending on how empty that tankard was – it was she and raised her hand. With ease, Sari slid the hot crock of meat, vegetables, and potato in front of her, distributing the other dishes as quickly as she named them and they were claimed.

She'd been waiting tables at the Whitecap for the past three years, and she was good at it, which was why she always got the good tips. She tucked her tray under her arm, pulled cloth napkins and spoons out of her apron pockets, and gave her customers her best smile. "Anything else I can get you folks? No? Just give me a wave if you need anything, then."

She set a miniature flag stand in the middle of the crowded table, smiled again, and turned around, ready to dash back to the kitchen for the next round.

And promptly ran into Marjn, who was standing right behind her.

"Ouch – Mare! What are you doing?" Sari exclaimed. The Whitecap, located on the bay in Balfonheim Port, was a haunt for adventurers, hunters, and pirates of all races, who weren't exactly known for patience. Tonight was no exception. The two women had split the tables of the upper floor, and little flags were waving in the smoky air by the windows. One of them, held aloft by a hard-bitten moogle with black circles in the white fur around his beady eyes, was signaling something rude in semaphore. "Tables one, five, and six want you."

"Isn't that Jothaniel?" Marjn shouted calmly. She pointed a long, claw hard nail toward the door.

Before Sari could answer, someone shoved his chair into her, catching her painfully in the lower back. He jumped up, apologizing profusely. Embarrassed, he then asked directions amid the loud japes of his compatriots, but Sari bowed him toward the lavatory with a winning smile, assuring him she was fine. Which she would be, if Marjn would get out of her way.

He squeezed between the two women, his gaze lingering appreciatively on Marjn's cleavage, which was about level with his eyes. The space between the tables was limited, which was why Melly had instructed the wait staff never to stand around flirting. A bruise wasn't worth a broken heart. No man courted a waitress longer than it took to get her in his bunk. They'd all learned this lesson at least once. For the practical ones, that was the end of it. The romantic ones, like Nikki, covered her bruises with naked hope. It made Sari sick to her stomach.

"I don't know if it's him or not. Look, Mare –" Another flag popped up like an ozmone hare, this time at table eleven, one of hers. "Jon knows I'm working tonight. I'll talk to him later."

Marjn turned large, reddish eyes on her. She'd dyed her silver hair to match, and the auburn waves around her flawless mocha face was a striking effect. "Grench is talking to him right now," she said. Nothing much ever fazed the viera, but something in her tone made Sari squint toward the front door.

Not that she could see a thing. She wasn't very tall. Especially compared to Marjn in her six inch stilettos. Biting her lip, Sari threw dignity into the sea, held the back of her skirt down with one hand, and jumped a couple of times to get a better view. Marjn watched her antics, amused.

It _was_ Jothaniel. His flaxen hair was hard to miss amid so many dark haired Archadians. Helm under his arm, face sweat streaked and dirty, he gestured as he spoke, a sure sign of agitation.

Grench, arms folded on top of his protruding belly, shirt front stained from his hours in the kitchen, was blocking the way into the tavern and getting redder in the face. Going past red. Purpling. Another sure sign of agitation.

Sensing an explosion, Sari ducked, pushed Marjn toward her customers, and scurried over to table eleven. Nightly, Grench complained about Marjn's lack of urgency and blamed it on the natural flightiness of empty female minds. He was a chauvinistic baknamy at times, yes, but waiting tables was good pay, and it wasn't like he abused any of them. Maybe if Sari kept working, she could avoid most of the blast. Maybe.

"Hello, folks, sorry about the wait," she said cheerily, meeting the eyes of all four patrons in turn. That always won them over. Eye contact. Smiles. High energy. Ready answers to every question. The components of an elixir that yielded good gil, every time. "What can I get for you?"

Even though she didn't have Marjn's sensitive ears, she could hear the disturbance at the door growing. She put her back to it, leaning on the uneven resin top of the table to hear her customer's orders better. Grench had built the tables out of driftwood, hemp, steel bolts, and old beer kegs. They were sturdy enough to weather the fiercest brawls.

Disappointingly, the order was small. Two pilsners, a lager, and an ale, plus a plate of cheese pierogis and one of potato. She was busy up selling Grench's two-for-one drink special when the wooden door burst inward and slammed against the stone wall hard enough to put a stop to conversation in the entire pub. Then talk started up again like the muzzy roar of a ring wyrm, louder than before.

Sari stared. Grench stared, his thick, hairy arms slack at his sides, as Jothaniel elbowed him aside and conducted four other filthy adventurers in. She recognized Daq, Savin, Eagrin, and Twitch. Propped between them, a fifth adventurer in heavy plate that she didn't know was dead to the world, his messy hair and beardless face smeared with gore.

It wasn't until Jothaniel cleared the nearest table of tankards and ashtrays with a sweep of both arms – scattering the table's cursing, dripping occupants – and directed his friends to put the unconscious hume on it that Sari knew she was in trouble. Twitch seemed to be clutching a bundle of cloth and weapons that weren't his, backed into a corner like a frightened cockatrice; Eagrin and Savin began removing the stanger's armor; Jothaniel whipped a towel out of Nikki's hands, plunged it into a pitcher of water, and started mopping blood with it. Unsurprisingly, Daq picked up one of the fallen tankards and upended it over his wide open, snaggletoothed maw. The man on the table never stirred. His blood drooled into a puddle on the greasy, beery floorboards.

Sure enough, Mt. Grench blew.

"_Sari_!"

This time, it was much harder holding her smile as she turned back to her customers. Putting her hands together in apology, she said, "It looks like something's come up, gents, madam. I'll send Nikki with those drinks for you, but she might be a moment. And to thank you for your understanding, your ticket will be on me. How does that sound?"

"Well, brown sugar, how about throwing in some fruit pasties?" one of the men asked, grinning.

She made a face. She hated that nickname. _Greedy unoriginal bas-_

"_SARI_!"

"Excuse me," she gasped, and bolted. She may not have been as leggy as a viera, but she was an active sort of person, and she'd learned the hip swish necessary for navigating the crowded tavern in a skirt long ago. Her regulars shouted encouragement and questions, which she ignored. Taking the stairs two at a time, she tried to calculate her earnings from the last few weeks in her head. She'd been pulling double shifts lately. Four beers and a couple of pasties? She should still have enough for next month's rent. Probably.

Whoever this guy was, he'd better be worth it.

She snagged Nikki, pleading with her in a desperate half-shout to cover her tables. After glaring a moment, the other girl rolled her eyes and stomped up the stairs.

_And that's why you don't get tipped well_, Sari thought, sticking her tongue out at her. Then Grench reached her.

Too angry for a prolonged speech, her boss put a thick-fingered hand on her shoulder and ground out, "Get . . . rid . . . now," through his beard before he disappeared behind the bar. At least he hadn't fired her outright. Melly, his wife, was already in the crowd, applying damage control with a basket of fresh rolls and butter. Sari didn't see why. Fifty or so health code violations aside, their customers were loving the scene. Quite a line had built up, ordering enough beer to drown a behemoth as they gawked through the open door and windows.

"Jon! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sari hissed, coming up behind him.

"Found him in the Uplands," Jon grunted in his blunt Dalmascan accent. "He's in a bad way, Sari. He needs help."

"So you brought him _here_?" Curiosity got the better of her, and she edged closer, peering down at the unconscious man. "This is a _restaurant_, you nincompoop. People eat here! What's wrong with the healer, for crying out loud?"

Jon grabbed her wrist with a bloody glove, his gray eyes intense. "Leapin' Bangaa is too far. He needs _you_."

Sari held his gaze, and then sighed and nodded. She wasn't going to turn away a hume in need, not even if it meant she might lose her job. Maybe Grench will have grown a heart by the time she got Jon and the others out of there.

"All right, boyos, get that shirt off him," she said briskly. "And someone tell Daq he has to pay for that."

"What?" the seeq choked into the tankard, hoppy foam dripping from his upturned nose and double chin, a pasty oozing moon berries clutched in his claws. "It was on the floor!"

"Way to keep it classy, Daq," Savin rumbled.

"Shut it," Daq returned, shoving the rest of the pasty in his mouth. He dug sourly around in the bejeweled pouch at his waist, half hidden in the overhang of his bare white belly.

Chuckling, Sari shook her head and focused on her patient.

He was young, three or four years past her twenty. At first, as the boys worked on clearing away the remaining bits of armor and clothing, she studied him in a detached sort of way. She'd been wrong about his face before – he wore a sparse, yellow-white goatee, his sideburns neatly trimmed. She'd never seen hair quite that color before, the dark gold of ripe wheat, and there was a lot of it, curling and snarled to his waist. Hah, this guy had more hair than she did. It was nothing like hers, which was jet black and launched out of her head in short spirals no bigger around than her littlest finger.

She cocked her head. He was . . . handsome. And strong, to have carried around that ridiculous, expensive armor. Normally, she didn't like her men that pale; for years, she'd harbored a crush on Savin, black as velvet and bulky as a mountain, but had never acted on it. Which was probably for the best.

But now, as her hands explored the seeping wound in his gut, she thought she liked the contrast of her dark fingers against his warm golden brown skin.

"Serpent?" she asked in her most professional voice. Even as she said it, she knew she hadn't guessed it. The teeth marks that had savaged this guy were too wide, too numerous. She began picking pieces of plate out of the ugly holes, gently realigning severed muscle and skin.

Jothaniel and Eagrin exchanged a look, and it was Eagrin who spoke through his curtain of sleek black hair. "It was a tarasque. That's what we were after today."

"You're going to have to give me more information than that," she said.

"Rare game," Jothaniel admitted, earning himself a glare from Sari. "It's a type of toad. We were clearing the area of lizards when this guy showed up, alone. Unfortunately, the tarasque got to him before we could warn him. It was huge, easily twice the size of Sav. It pulled _him_ right off his chocobo."

"Oh, Jon, why don't you get a real job instead of bringing me your messes to put back together?" Sari muttered, her eyes full of the blue glow of curing magick. Truth be told, she was a talented mage, but healing didn't pay the bills. Not when she tended to give her skills away for free. Kind of like now. She sighed again, returning her mind to business. "Doesn't seem like it was poisonous, but there's some spinal damage. This might take a minute. Back off, will you?"

If there was one person that all hunters and adventurers respected, it was a healer. They did as she asked and she, concentrating, put them and the rest of the Whitecap out of her head.

The Mist, the twinkling power of magick that infused every rock and stone of Ivalice, was slippery and uneven here, subject to the tides and the season. The elementals who called Cerobi Steppe home for half the year were missing, migrated to islands deep in the Naldoan Sea. Still, the Mist was present, and she called it in, harnessed it, and shaped it with glowing sigils she drew on the air. The fevered body beneath her hands gradually relaxed and the breathing evened out. She restored lost blood, closed wounds, fixed broken bones, reattached muscle and tendon.

She was feeling the strain when it was done. Jon, the sweetheart, caught her when her knees gave out, and then they all stared at the figure on the table.

Who opened his eyes, which turned out to be a startling shade of leaf green.

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_**A/N: **Please review, and let me know what you think! I welcome all comments and return all reviews. :3_

_Humbly Yours,_

_Anne_


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing he heard was applause.

Funny, he certainly hadn't left home to that. It had been more like the quiet thunder of his father's voice, telling him not to bother returning.

A glacial filament of anger crawled through his stomach. His father lived in a world of black and white. He'd passed judgment on his own son without even bothering to check his facts. So he'd left, in spite of Emilie's tears, pretending he hadn't seen the vast disappointment in his mother's still-young face.

"Take it easy, you've been through quite an ordeal," a woman said, bringing him back to the hazy present. "Some people feel queasy after a healing. Will you be needing a bucket?"

He blinked at her. A riot of gravity-defying, inky curls framed a round, pretty face, as smooth and slightly shiny as terracotta-colored silk. He shook his head in reply. His mother couldn't handle potions and the like, but he never had trouble with them.

He could smell meat and beer; not what he would have expected in a healer's shop. Where was he - and for that matter, how had he gotten there? "You're a mage," he said. A question.

"A waitress," she corrected. She smiled at him, her teeth very white, eyes very black. A dimple appeared in her chin. "I'm afraid the best accommodation I could offer is table two. It is the middle of the dinner rush, after all."

Waitress? He sat up to a sea of rough faces, male and female, mostly hume but interspersed with bangaa, seeq, and moogle, their expressions running the gamut from smiles to scowls, all shadowed by pipe smoke and gilded by lamplight. He curled one arm over his stomach, noting his state of undress and health right away.

He hadn't died, then. For a moment, when that giant creature covered in red river mud had burst out of the water with a deafening croak, sunlight flashing off its horns, he'd thought he was done for.

Speaking of which, it had been daylight then. It didn't feel that way anymore, judging by the lit crystal lanterns and the indigo hue of the sky glimpsed through windows open to the sea breeze. Dinnertime, the waitress had said. What time was that, exactly?

He looked down. His legs dangled off the edge of - disbelieving, he dug his fingers into a sticky resin coating. He really was on a table. He looked around. On a table in a pub. And had been healed by a woman in a short skirt who poured beer for a living.

He frowned.

Someone slapped him on the back. "Hey, did that toad scramble your brains? Get up. We've worn our welcome out a bit."

"Just a bit," the woman agreed in Balfonheim's coarse accent, dimpling again. "Hate to say it, Jon, but if you're not buying, get out."

"Thanks, Sari," said the man, sincerely.

Dalmascan through and through, that one, he noticed. The free city of Balfonheim Port attracted all kinds, or so he'd heard. Guess it was true.

Jon of Dalmasca hugged the woman with one arm, holding his helm under the other, his sweaty hair sticking up like wet dandelion fluff. "I'll make it up to you."

"Forgive me, but I've heard that before."

The noise inside the tavern was building as people returned to their meals and drinks. Still seesawing between the scene between himself and his father, the creature, and now, he eased himself to the floor, marveling at how good he felt. The mage was a good one, waitress or not. He turned to her to thank her, but -

"Beware," a redheaded viera shouted, breezing by with a tray loaded with full tankards propped on her shoulder. "Grench fetched the law."

The woman - Sari? - immediately began righting chairs, accepting the wet towel the viera slipped her to clean his blood from the sticky, warped tabletop. The sharp tang of bleach burned his nose, and she worked quickly, with a healer's precise, steady hands. She was shaking her head at the Dalmascan and a black golem of a man - all chest, arm, and leg. She gestured toward the door. Still a little befuddled, he watched all this, and the viera's long, auburn ears bob above the packed tables, and the front door swing open, admitting one disgruntled barkeep and six men wearing the badges of the port authority.

The big, dark man folded his arms and set his chin as if to say that no one was moving him anywhere, law or not.

His attitude seemed to galvanize the barkeep. He marched toward them, the goons in tow.

The port authority knew their business well; they split up, flanking table two. There was a lot of scuffling and shoving as they tried to remove him and the others by force. Affronted, he shook off their grasping hands. It wasn't like he'd _asked_ to come here.

It wasn't like the law cared. Two men grabbed his arms and twisted them behind him. "Lay off!" he shouted at the floor, hair in his mouth, his elbow and shoulder joints protesting.

Suddenly, one of the men holding him stumbled, dragging him sideways. When he regained his footing, he found an arm free and swung at the port authority still latched onto his other arm. The big guy, his shaved head as black as a bombshell, lifted the one he'd pushed by his shirt front. Scenting a full blown brawl, the pub's customers vacated the lower level, some dashing into the street without paying for half drunk beers and partially eaten meals.

His complexion an alarming shade of puce, the barkeep stormed up to Sari and began yelling at her, jabbing a thick finger at the empty tables. He was so furious that a button on his shirt actually popped off his straining belly and shot into the crowd.

"_I said out_! Get them out, or you're out, too!"

"Grench, please, he needed help, I couldn't say no. It won't happen again, they're leaving." Smiles gone, Sari looked at the one she'd called Jon, her little hands splayed toward the barkeep as if to keep him from bowling her over like a berserking werewolf. If he decided to charge, she had about as much chance as a wyrdhare against him. She was brave, he thought in admiration. "All right?" she said to him, her expression plaintive. "They're _leaving_."

The Dalmascan didn't argue, but pushed his way past the port authority, mouth set in an angry line, cloak fluttering.

"That's it, boyo, we don't want to cause her any more trouble. Let's do as she says, hmm?" a thin adventurer said, close to his ear. He was a sallow sort of man, his blue eyes obscured by uneven black hair. The Archadian hunter smirked at his flustered look, and then loudly said, "I'm Eagrin."

"Noah," he shouted back, and then belatedly realized the tavern had gone too quiet. Backing off from the lawman he'd punched, who was blotting a bloody nose in a discarded napkin, he felt for his weapons, found nothing. In a quieter voice, he added, "Noah fon Ronsenburg. Where -?"

"Outside." Eagrin tilted his head, tucking his thumb under the strap of his quiver. He was an unassuming and incongruous type of hume - too much so. He reminded Noah of a dagger, a weapon meant to be concealed.

The lawmen were glaring, but they stood aside readily enough as the big, threatening one and the thin, dangerous one headed for the door, Noah in their wake.

"Let's go, Twitch," a purple skinned seeq added, who had apparently been too busy eating to help. He wiped his chin on the back of his wrist, handed a tankard to someone sitting at a table behind him, and then lumbered toward the door. He scooped up a very skinny, very short, very frightened-looking kid on the way.

They heard, "_And don't come back_!" before the door slammed shut.

Noah looked over his shoulder, noting the carved wooden sign depicting a cresting wave in faded blue and white paint above the door, but Eagrin got close to him again and shook his head meaningfully. The six men of the port authority also exited the Whitecap, staring holes in their heads, waiting for an excuse to come after them. Troubled, Noah allowed himself to be swept down the wharf.

Kicked out of his home and a pub he'd never even walked in to, all in one day. It had to be some kind of pathetic record. To his left, the salty waves of the Naldoan pounded the seawall. He tried not to shiver in the chill, wet air, wishing for his shirt.

"Dammit, Daq, put me down," the kid complained, wriggling. His head hung down by the seeq's thigh, his feet waving stupidly overhead, his arms pinned by a loop of fat and muscle he obviously couldn't break through. The blood rushing to his head turned his face bright red in the light of a street lamp. "I can walk, you overgrown pig!"

The seeq merely grunted a laugh. _Bwee heehee_!

Noah stopped, and the five other men did, also. They eyed each other under the streetlight.

"Thank you," he said at last.

From his awkward position, the kid grinned. "Bet us saving your skin's worth a few gil, eh?"

"Oh, shut it, Twitch," the Dalmascan one groaned. He scrubbed a mailed hand through his hair. "It was our fault he got hurt in the first place. Daq, put the idiot down before the weight kills what few brain cells he has." Abruptly, he turned to Noah. "I'm Jothaniel. Everybody calls me Jon."

"Noah fon Ronsenburg," Noah said again.

Jon introduced the big man as Savin, but Savin himself didn't speak. Instead, he thumped Twitch in the back of the head, nearly sending the boy face first to the cobbles. Noah had seen his sort before, down in Old Town Archades with the other fallen. He'd be a thief, then, and a damn good one. Valuable to a party of adventurers, and worth keeping fed, if not exactly respected.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Twitch muttered, and then grudgingly offered Noah a bundle that he recognized as his cape. It was torn, but it was wrapped around his bloodied clothing, his shield and axe, the harness belts intact, and one of his saddlebags. When he looked up questioningly, Twitch's brown eyes slid away. "The other one got smashed, mate. Nothing left."

"My chocobo?" Noah asked, tugging his tailored waistcoat into place.

"Dead," Jon said. "Look, I'm sorry. I don't think there was anything salvageable of your plate. Is there somewhere you need to be?"

Noah's fingers stilled on a buckle, the axe hanging at his hip.

The truth of his situation was sinking in. He'd planned to come to Balfonheim and find a place to stay. Beyond that, he'd made no plans. All he had to do was prove to his father that he could make it on his own, that what had happened hadn't been Noah's fault. He wasn't naive; he had money, although not much, but now that he'd lost his armor and his chocobo and needed new clothes, now that it was night and the rooms for rent were probably filled. . . .

"No," he said in a low voice. "I have . . . nowhere to go."

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_**A/N: **Well, here's a second chapter, which brings us to one from each of my new protagonists. __What do you think so far? These two chapters might be no more than character sketches, but if I can get the full story plotted, I would have no problem replacing them with "real" chapters. For now, this is good enough to show Sari and Noah at the moment of meeting. :3_

_I feel kind of guilty posting these half baked chapters, hee. Truth be told, my ThunderCats fanfic is keeping me pretty busy and_ _I have no right to be working on something else, but have you ever had an idea that just wouldn't leave you alone? That's what happened to me! It's crazy. ____I do have a vague idea of one of the themes for the story, and have specific scenes sketched out, but I am still in desperate need of some input for the rest. Is anyone interested in joining this little project?_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Artemis zodiac **(omg, I was so excited to see you leave a review here! Thank you so much! I know it's not easy to review on a fandom that may not be yours), and **autumn-leaf16 **(Wow, thank you! It's always fun to know that someone at least tried my other fics - and I'm very grateful you decided to review here. Your words are helpful. Thank you so much). You guys are AMAZING and deserve a reward! Thanks again! You made me very happy!_

_Until next time (and may it be soon),_

_Anne_


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